I liked what the tv series did of making the web shooting technology something Spider-Man manufactured with the spider's intuition

Corlock Striker

Eh, I'm not talking about the movie franchise, I'm talking about within the pages of the comics. I dislike Organic Webbing because the Web Shooters and what they symbolize dissappear. The Web Shooters, and Web Fluid designed, created, and built by Peter Parker represent the one thing that Peter Parker brings to the Spider-Man persona, that is indispensible to that persona, the one power Peter Parker had before he was bitten by that spider, his intelligence. That's what the Web Shooters symbolize, and for Spider-Man, his intelligence is an extremely important asset, so to me, taking away the symbol of it, is in extremely poor taste. And now, Spider-Man is dead to me, even though he's been my favorite hero since I was six, because of that stupid and lame, Organic Webbing.

Ock

Ummm he did that in comics too

And the idea of organics in the comics is ridiculous.He has had webshooters for over 40 years.No need for this change.

grey fox

they pulled the idea straight out of their asses

dami wilson

HA HA HA HA HA , Yeah it sucked but movie rights. Web shooters would be very very expensive for a college student though, dont you think? Where would he find the money and resources to make the darn thing anyway?
Where would he have had enough money to buy it if it were sold? And wouldn't who ever sold it to him tell the papers? Huh ? Huh?

Come on! WHERE WOULD PUNK BROKE Peter Parker find the cash to keep buying such expensive fluids to make the web? The films deal more with reality checks than the comics you know!

Mr Parker

oh please,we dont know that it cost that much moeny for him to get the chemicals to make the webbing.for all we know it could be very cheap for him to do so.thats a poor and lame excuse.

Dazzler619

Either way is good

Zephonim

I liked the organic shooters as opposed to how they would have had to do the web shooters. It always bugged me in the comics that he just suddenly goes "hey here's some web I made and an old science project." They were cool, but we needed more on where they came from. The movie would have been the same way, not enough time to really explain how they worked or where they came from.

Napalm

Corlock Striker

Just to make sure we're all on the same page, this thread isn't about what was done in regards to the movie. I got over that a while ago, I was upset, but I moved on. This thread is about the recent change in THE SPIDER-MAN COMIC BOOKS from the web shooters to organic webbing.

Now dami wilson says that the web shooters are unrealistic. That it's unrealistic for a high school/college student to have invented web shooters and web fluid. That seems reasonable. That with his powers, it is more realistic for Spider-Man to have organic webbing. Let's examine this hypothesis shall we?

The basic premise of such an argument is that because Peter Parker's powers are Spider based, it seems to make sense that when he received these powers he should have also gained the ability to make webbing, as a Spider does.

Now remember, I am going to describe this in such a way that you can easily understand and visualize the concepts I'm trying to get across. While these explanations are good for what I am attepting to do, they don't really reflect how things actually work within a spider.

Imagine a spider, now imagine the rear end of the spider. Imagine that there is a spool of string within that part of the spider, and that it can exit the spider through a hole at the rear end of the spider. It's just a spool of string, nothing more, no fancy mechanisms or anything like that, except for something like a brake, theat prevents the spool from spinning.

If you pull on the webbing more will come out, so long as the break isn't engaged, but it won't project itself from the spider any distance. This is essentially the way spiders produce webbing, they don't project their web. To get it across a great distance a spider will let out a bit of webbing and then let the wind carry it across the gap, and hopefully the web will stick to something. They don't project it across the gap.

As for how a spider produces a web, they don't just spit out ready made webs, they build webs strand by strand, one strand at a time. Eventually they build it into complex and interesting patterns, but they don't just shoot them out already made like that. They prodcue a strand, get it attached to something, and then produce each successive strand in the web, one strand at a time.

Spiders do not release their webbing from their legs, they release it near their rear end, in one location. No spider releases webbing from two different locations, let along any of its eight limbs.

Let's look at Spider-Man's web shooters.

He has two of them, located on his wrists? Is that believable? Yes, considering he made them and can therefore make as many of them he wants and place them wherever he wants on his body.

The web shooters project webbing a great distance, as Napalm stated, 60 feet or more, depending on how the webbing is shot. Does this make sense? Yes, considering that the web fluid is kept under extreme pressure and then released, it does make sense that the web shooters can project the web fluid for great distances. Sort of like if you shake up a can of soda a whole lot and then open it, the soda then goes everywhere. That's because when you shake up the soda you create a lot of preassure within the can, when you release that preasure by opening the can, the soad is forced out of the can by that preasure you created. Same principle here.

The web shooters can either produce a strand of webbing, shoot out a ready made web, or very dense web constructs, aka web sheilds. They do this by adjusting how the webbing is sprayed out of the nozel of the web shooter. Don't think this is possible? Think of a garden hose. Now put one of those gun like attatchments on the end of it, I'm sure you all know the one I'm taking about.

It screws onto the end of the hose, and is "L" shaped, on the long part of the "L" a lever sticks off that is connected to a stopper in the nozel. Depending on how hard you press on the lever you can push the stopper out far from the nozel or not so far. This results in either a fine, wide spread mist shooting out from this attatchment, or a thin high preasured stream shooting out from the attatchment.

Pretty much the same idea for the web shooters that results in either a web line, a web net, or a web sheild. Pretty believable too, and not all that advanced in terms of a mechanical concept.

Now considering that's the way Spider-Man's webbing has worked for over thirty years, I think we can say with realitive confidence, that even with organic webbing, it would still be able to do the same things. So let's see exactly what sort of biological changes would have to be made to Peter Parker's body to produce the same effects.

Number one he would need some new organ that produces webbing, from the food he eats, giving this fact, and the fact that it would need to hold a lot of web fluid, it would probably be located somewhere within his abdomen and connected to his digestive system. Okay, that seems reasonable.

As we have seen in the comics, the organic webbing also shoots out of both his forearms, near his wrists. Okay, so Peter now needs some sort of vein like tubbing that carries this webbing from near his digestive system, up towards his neck, which is most likely where it would then branch to travel down both his arms.

This tubing would then travel down his arms to two new orafices in his skin, that had not been previously present. As we've said, this organic webbing will most likely function in the exact same way as his web shooters, meaning the organic webbing with be project from his body. Now to make that plausible somewhere within his body needs to be located an organ that produces three hundred pounds per square inch of preassure. It would not be a good idea for this organ to be located near the organ that produces the web fluid, and that would exert that three hundred pounds of pressure per square inch of preasure on the web fluid while it travels through the tubing within Peter's body to it's eventual release point at his wrist.

Now, where it located there either it would have to exert that preasure continuously, meaning those orafices would have to be able to resist three hundred pounds of preassure per square inch for extended periods of time, which seems like quite a lot to ask of these orafices, meaning Peter just might be prone to frequent misfires of his organic webbing in his civilian life. That wouldn't be very good.

The other option is, it only exerts that preassure when Peter's mind sends a signal to the organ to do so. This seems like a good idea, but then again remember, the tubing doesn't branch off until near his neck, so that preassure would be applied to both of his wrists at the same time. Most likely meaning he would always fire from both orafices every time he wanted to shoot webbing. Not all that desirable either.

The final option of course is that Peter has two of these organs, one located in each forearm near each orafice, that only exerts preassure on the web fliud as it is ready to leave Peter's body. Seem to me that most likely an organ such as this would be of a ballooning nature. Sort of like our lungs, it would probably be filled with the web fluid to maximum capacity. When in this filled state the organ would probably be very solid and not flexible in anyway. Then the balloning organ would be compressed, that action would force the webbing out under the necessary preassure. However, this would mean only as much webfluid as can possibly be squeezed into this organ would be under the necessary preassure, meaning there is a length limitation to Spider-Man's webbing that wasn't there with the web shooters.

Seems feasible, except for one thing, take a look at Peter Parker, he's a pretty skinny guy, his forearms don't have a lot of space in them, except for maybe that space between the two bones in his forearm. He's the problem though, the reason we have two bones in our forearm, and the reason there is space between them is so we can rotate our wrist. Rotating our wrists actually causes the space between the bones to be deminished. Now, imagine that organ ballooned out ready to fire webs, it'd probably have to get pretty big in order to exert 300 pounds of preassure per square inch on the web fluid. As stated above, the organ would probably be pretty solid while filled with web fluid, meaning it won't be malleable. This would therefore mean that while this organ is filled with web fluid Spider-Man would not be able to rotate his wrists.

Now, let's see, in order to recreate the web shooters ability to shoot out ready made webbing, Spider-Man would need to be able to consciously control the width of the orafices on his forearms, and he might even need to have an organ that would act something like the stopper I described above, when explaining how the web shooters produced this functionality. And organ who's distance from these new orafices on his wrists Peter would also have to be able to consciously control.

What I really love though is that you seem to think that because Peter's powers are spider based, it makes far more sense for his webbing to be organic. You think so hmm? There are no species of spider that have projectile webbing, so how could this feature of his organic webbing be giving to him, when it doesn't exist in nature, there's no genetic blue print for it. There are no spiders that produce ready made webs, what spider species would he get that species from, where would he get the necessary genetic blue prints for organs to produce such functionality?

( Continued in my next post. )

Corlock Striker

( Continued from my previous post. )

No spiders release webbing from their limbs, why would his organic webbing therefore shoot out from his arms? What species of spider would influence that genetic trait within him? If he's going to get webbing from spiders, it shouldn't be produced from his wrists, but rather somewhere near his rear end, just like on all spiders. If should be able to project itself, as no spider can do that, and it shouldn't be able to produce instant webs, as no spider can do that either. So tell me how does organic webbing make more sense than web shooters, given the way Peter's webbing works?

Oh, and lets not forget, Peter's powers aren't actully genetic in nature, they're mystical. He's a totem being, remember? It wasn't that the spider was radioactive that gave him his powers. It was the fact that he was destined to be the spider totem. Had the spider simply bit him, and not been radioactive, he still would have gotten the powers. One can also gain these powers without being the chosen totem being, by going through a mystical ritual.

What does this mean, this means exactly how his powers can be explained. The super strength, and jumping ability, almost any magical being has enhanced strength, the jumping is a result of the strength. The spider-sense, limited precognitive telepathy. Being able to stick to walls, limited teleknesis.

Given that, does it really make sense for these powers of his that are mystical in nature to cause such changes to his physiology that he can now project organic webbing, especially considering most of the functionality he would need from that webbing has no basis in nature?

Certainly doesn't seem to make all that much sense to me. Considering all of this, I have to say that the web shooters make a hell of a lot more sense than organic webbing. Thank you, and good night.

#1Rupert_Lover

I personally think the organic webbing is a better idea. first of all, it's not really too realistic to do web shooters because not even scientists figured out what webs are made of. plus, Spider-Man doesn't have to worry about running out of webbing, and his webs would alway be at hand just in case.

Corlock Striker

That is not quite correct. With organic webbing he still needs to worry about running out. After all, his body will only make so many. Of course, with organic webbing he then needs to worry about ingesting foods containing the proper raw materials to produce it. Once he runs out of raw materials for producing the webbing in his body however, he's out of webbing, so yeah, there's still a limit to how much webbing he has at his disposal.

And if scientist still don't know what makes up webbing, who knows exactly what he'd have to injest in order to have the necessary raw materials for the creation of webbing. Might be some pretty digusting, or toxic substances that Peter may just refuse to eat, even though he knows he needs to, in order to produce the organic webbing. So again, I just don't see organic webbing making more sense than the web shooter. For a more complete argument as to why the organic webbing makes little to no sense, in my mind, see my previous two part post.

#1Rupert_Lover

Well, it doesn't have to be completely realistic. And I would personally find it very fun to swing around the place without the hassle of putting on those web shooters. and I thought it made a lot more sense in the movie to do that, because of all the stuff Spider-Man needed to do in the comics just to hold all those web cartridges would have been a stupid thing to do in the movie. I always thought it was such a bother for spider-man to be using web shooters, because whenever the web fluid ran out, he had to quickly reload it with his extras. and when the webbing completely ran out, he'd have to go back home and make more. And I would find those to be big disadvantages in a fight. that's my opinion

doctorstrongbad

It did make Spiderman's life more complicated, he had to keep track of his web fluid amount. Like should I waste web fluid on this bank robber or should I wait til the end of my patrol in case I find some real trouble.

I think that is were the original idea for the black suit came from. It was a way for Spidey to have unlimited Web fluid. I also think that they didn't like the idea so they turned it into Venom.

#1Rupert_Lover

I remember reading somewhere that they missed the old Spider-Man costume design and that's why they changed that costume into venom. I can understand it too. the classic costume is more colorful. But other than that, organic webs are awesome. I mean, true, it might not be the more exact scientific way of doing it with the whole extra organs, but it is so much easier for him. And seriously, as i said before, there's no need for exact science of that of a spider. I mean, they could make up their own scientific theory about Spider-Man's powers. they could have that organ in his stomach, and say that from this organ there are tubes that branch up the arms, that are about the size of a big vein, so that he could shoot webbing out without the whole stiff arm thing. and they could say that he can eat any kind of food to refill this organ, or something crazy like that. it isn't that hard to come up with a fake theory. that's my personal opinion.

Red Superfly

The webshooters made more sense, they were more realistic and demonstrated Petes intellect. Only Pete could be Spider-Man.

Organic webs are just the same, only without the possibilities.

He can't use his web carts as explosive devices.

He can't mix cement into his webbing, or insulate the formula, to tackle Hydro-man or Electro, for example.

I don't know why they went to the bother of explaining how only Peter could be Spider-Man, the spider chose him because of who he was, and how clever he was - only for the writers to pull a complete 180 and demonstrate that Pete is nothing special because anybody can have organic webbing if they want. Pete's "knowledge" again gets thrown out of the window. The Ezekial saga proved how crucial Pete's knowledge was in him being chosen for SPider-Man, the organic webbing proved that Pete's knowledge had bugger all to do with it.

In the movies it made sense, but for the comics you have way more time for explaining the webshooters and having fun with the extensive opportunities they bring.

Also, webshooters are more realistic IMO because if a Spider fired webbing out of its ass as fast as Spidey fires his, it'd probably turn inside out.

Yeah its a comic book, sure - but don't justify organics as worthwhile by saying "they're more realistic". That utter BS. They are more convenient forlazy storywriters, yeah, but not more realistic. In fact, the fact that Pete is not the radioactive Spider-Man anymore and the fact that he now spins webs out of his hands of free will demonstrates how Spider-Man isn't anywhere near as realistic as when he started back in the 60's.

#1Rupert_Lover

it still wouldn't have worked out in the movies. besides, i just said it doesn't have to be completely realistic. as a matter of fact, they both have the same amount of unrealistic. I mean, scientists still don't know what webs are made out of! and plus, as Mr Parker had said in an earlier post, you know how much money those chemicals probably cost!? They cost a lot more than peter could afford. and if there is one thing peter struggles with a lot, it's money. and as i said before, it's way too much of a hassle. and as for the special chemicals needed to be used to defeat some of the bad guys, they could come up with a different kind of way to add those chemicals. like it could be injected into the web stream for temporary use. so if you think about it, they both have realistic and unrealistic qualities.

ebosian

Imma kind of torn between the comics new approach to organics.
I have pros and cons for both of them

At first I thought as some on these boards do. Going to organics would
mean he would lose the advantage of making special web fluids for characters like sandman, hydroman etc.. But then I figure, in the comics, sense he is smart, he can just make add on shooters to his organics that would mix with the organics to produce special webbing.
Here he would only need mechancial "overlays" when fighting special villians.

But then the whole physics of organics makes no sense. A spider doesn't "shoot" web fluid as mentioned before. So if peter took on all the powers of a spider, why would his webs "shoot"? Upon further evaluation, his "spider-sense" doesn't really fit with a "real" spider anyway. The arachnids may have hairs that can detect movement from around them, but SM senses go way beyound that.

Then I figured, hey if your going to make the guy stick to wall like a spider, give him some sort of sense like a spider, and make him hyper strong and quick, why not round the package off and give him some sort of webbing too..?

So if 'they' make him still use the shooters as a augment for special villians, then I may be liberal in allowing the organics.

Red Superfly

Definitely. I think if they keep the webshooters around I don't think it'll be a problem.

I also think Pete should have trouble with his organic webbing if he is worn out.

He would be sweating and losing juice in a fight. His webshooters were never related to his fatigue - but his organics should be.

Going back to my "spitting" thing. Spidey won't be able to keep a strong stream of webbing for long, and when he's fatigued, just like spit, he'll have even less of it unless he eats and drinks. This means during fights, he'll be running out at the most crucial points, i.e. at the end of fights. It could make for some truly interesting stories.

As long as the storytelling is good and he still has predicaments with his web, I'll be happy.

I bet we'll see the webshooters used again.

doctorstrongbad

I like the web shooters, I like the classic idea.

#1Rupert_Lover

well, i like the web shooters, too. but i think organics are better.

doctorstrongbad

So your voting organics?

#1Rupert_Lover

yeah. pretty much.

doctorstrongbad

Okay well I'm voting web shooters. I guess we are tied.

grandi1

my problem with the web shooters is that it is never really explained, we just hav to accept that bcuz Peter is a genius he "somehow" creates this seemingly magical super strong sticky substance in his basement from unknown raw materials....that to me is dumb....the organic webbing however makes more sense seeing that the spider that bit him altered his dna to the point that he gained all these other characteristics of that spider

riv6672

^^^Well, technically he should be shooting webs up out his butt, organically, but we accept they somehow come out of wrists.

The web shooters DO speak to Peter's genius, as do his spider tracers. He invented these things as a 15 year old kid with no special equipment and a public school education.
Thats impressive as hell. Thats 'in a cave with a box of scraps' impressive.